


Taste Divinity

by moonsmoocher



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:35:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonsmoocher/pseuds/moonsmoocher
Summary: Mercedes understood faith and prayer. She knew devotion to the goddess was her calling, the goddess and the women that fell from her perfect love.
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Taste Divinity

Mercedes often saw the goddess in other women, knew that she wished to lay with one, tasted divinity in kisses, felt the approach of the goddess herself at a woman’s touch. She remembered her first kiss with a girl she met at a small church, before the worst times of her childhood. She did not remember her name, but she remembered her clumsy movements, the way their teeth knocked together, the way she felt the other girl laugh in her own lungs. Mercedes understood faith and prayer. She knew devotion to the goddess was her calling, the goddess and the women that fell from her perfect love.

The next time Mercedes kissed another girl, it was as much an accident as it was blindness. Mercedes knew she had the soul of a woman, could feel it as much as she could twirl her own soul close to the goddess, though neither of them were aware at the time. It was two years before she came to truly know Annette. In that time, she sought every opportunity she could to chase divinity, practice worship, with the girls at the Royal School of Sorcery. Her dear Annette learned then her own kind of faith, from Mercedes. She kissed her again, as Annette fully.

She loves Annette, like all of the goddess’ creations, but Annette’s faith was of a different kind. She was not unsympathetic, but Mercedes devoted herself to the goddess first. She swore to never pray with Annette. The girl was still growing anew, and she must grow strong on her own. Mercedes would watch, nurture, follow, but never pray. Her dear Annette has found a kindred spirit, a soul like her own, a shy girl known as Bernadetta, and they worship the goddess in their own way.

In the near year she had been at Garreg Mach, she found many women wished to worship the goddess like her, their own flavors of faith mingling with her own to create something greater. But no faith, no prayer she could fathom came close to seeing the goddess in Marianne.

Mercedes often looks at the back of Marianne’s hair, done up in braids, loose and a little matted from sleep more often than not. The girl’s shoulders shake when she prays, and she prays every day, twice. In the morning, Mercedes finds Marianne at the front of the cathedral, head down. She leaves before classes start to greet her friends, but Marianne stays behind. When classes are called for the day, she sees Marianne slip past the rest of the Golden Deer, towards the cathedral, and when Mercedes says her evening prayers after dinner, she finds Marianne at the same spot, head down. Mercedes wonders if Marianne is getting enough to eat. She does not see her at meals.

One weekend, Mercedes considers praying near her. Many of the students and staff would come to the cathedral over the week, but no one is as fervent as Marianne. That day, she learns that Marianne prays from sunrise to the evening bell. Mercedes’s knees ached so much she has Annette help her back to her room. When she walks by Marianne’s room, she hears her crying quietly past the threshold. Annette looks at Mercedes, worried, and Mercedes shakes her head.

The following weekend, Mercedes prays next to Marianne. At first, she is skittish at the proximity, but within minutes, everything ceases to exist outside of Marianne’s prayer. Mercedes glances at her occasionally, and Marianne’s face is sometimes wet with tears, or slick with sweat, or pale as a full moon, and often some blend of those. Mercedes sees other things as well, like the gentle slope of her nose, the heavy circles under her eyes, lips so dry to be a cobweb of cracked skin, shoulders hunched in terror. She smells of bread and stables, stale, sour. Mercedes knows, in the depths of her soul, that Marianne is the closest she will ever find to the goddess.

A month has gone, and Mercedes prays in companionable silence with Marianne every day. They greet each other in the mornings, and bid farewell to each other in the evenings. They have meals together sometimes. Marianne tells Mercedes that she shouldn’t get close to her, because she is cursed by the goddess. She doesn’t push Mercedes away. Marianne introduces Mercedes to her favorite horse, Dorte. He has a gentle soul, like Marianne.

Another month. Sometimes Mercedes will hold Marianne’s hand when they pray. She likes it, feels her faith quicken her blood, proof of her devotion. One evening, they ride Dorte into town. Mercedes has wrapped her arms around Marianne’s waist. On the ride back to Garreg Mach, Marianne leans back into Mercedes. She laces their hands together. Mercedes cannot tell where her fingers end and Marianne’s begins. Mercedes’s mouth waters to taste Marianne’s divinity.

Another month still. Mercedes is patient. She knows Marianne wants to pray with her, in the way Mercedes wants. Marianne says she cannot, she is cursed by the goddess. She says beasts like her do not deserve to worship the goddess, only be put down like a lame animal. Mercedes does not abide this.

On the evening of the full moon, she takes Marianne to her bed and holds her. Marianne lets Mercedes pray, worship the goddess. Mercedes finally tastes Marianne’s divinity, and it’s thick and sour like her scent. Mercedes prays to the goddess to bless Marianne, keep her safe under her benevolent gaze. She worships Marianne, blessing every inch of her skin with kisses, through the night, every perfect blemish and mark, every errant trail of hair laid as landscape before her. Mercedes draws a map to the goddess with her tongue.

The sun warms their bed. Marianne is sore from worship, but she is not scared of her curse under the light of this day. Mercedes knows that the goddess blesses those who act of their own will. The goddess blesses them for chasing divinity.

**Author's Note:**

> A short companion piece for my Bernie/Annie work, [Tea, as Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913778/chapters/70936743), set after, and mentioned in passing.
> 
> I wasn't gonna publish this but my wife said it was _"hot,"_ so blame them.
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com/moonsmoocher) where I am gay.


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